Fate
by Whataman20934
Summary: Frodo's thoughts.


Fate

by Leafy

Rating: PG-13 for scary imagery and bad attitudes.

Author's Note: I'm in the process of writing a series of LOTR fanfics with titles that are also titles of some of the songs on the Trans-Siberian Orchestra album "Beethoven's Last Night". All of the stories are going to be linked. That's right, my first series! :o) Hope you like it!

Disclaimer: I own nothing Tolkien or Trans-Siberian Orchestra.

Author's Second Note: This is the third story in the series. There are references to both "Overture" and "Midnight" in here, but you'll probably be able to follow this even if you haven't read them. 

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I sit up against a tree, though this mostly all I've been doing for the past few hours, before we were freed. The sun is there, tangled in the branches over my head. It twinkles at me in a friendly manner, not one of vague treachery, which now that I think of it, is exactly how the Ring's light shone on me, though I was too distracted by the present situations ever to notice. The sun is friendly now, but I cannot see it. I cannot concentrate, for the terror, for the fear that holds my whole being in check. I've just woken from sleep, though I hope hopelessly that I'm not yet conscious, that it's only the disorientation of sleep or an early stage of wakefulness that plagues me with this mood. 

I know what's to come. It's as if it came to me in a dream, and perhaps it did. I see myself, dragging my weary and broken body across a sparse and burning landscape, the Ring hanging so heavy that I feel as if it could snap my neck. Tears to express my misery won't come into my eyes, for I am beyond any physical emotion, and at any rate, my dry, sticky mouth indicates that I have no water to spare, either in me or around me. There is no water where I am now. There is no food. There is no comforting sun. There is no one to help me. There is nothing. I am alone.

I'm back in the clearing now, and I suddenly wonder why I sat back without a word of contradiction as Elrond assembled the eight others in Imladris. There was really no point. I'm alone in this quest, and I then realize that I, alone, am not enough. Merely _I_ cannot keep evil from enslaving us all. But it is my fate to be alone. It's all that is in my mind; me alone. Failing. Dying. Dying alone, dwindling painfully and miserably. I just stop moving in the middle of the wasteland. All tension in my body ceases, I freeze for an instant in the position I am in then, then I fall over, limp, on the ground. No one to see it happen. No one to come find me, but perhaps a few bumbling orcs later, who will split the meager meat that might still cling to my frame, and happen luckily upon the Ring as they drag me away. And then, it will all be over. 

The others--Aragorn, Gandalf, Legolas, Boromir, Gimli, and the hobbits--can't stay with me. The Ring is too much, and besides, I don't feel that anyone else knows truly what it is to hold this Ring. Constantly, to be berated and enticed by visions and thoughts, even imagined resonating sounds of a future greatness, of a world without Sauron, but a world with the Ring, and me as its master. For you see, I _could _be its master. It is because I'm resisting that I find myself beleaguered. If I seized the Ring and accepted it, I could have all my heart's deepest desires, and more. It's these thoughts of greatness that make my future demise all the more acrimonious to accept, for there are times both now and in the future of my fate, that I know I would take the Ring into my hand and never let it go. But then, I remember the others. 

I don't take the Ring, because of them. But when they are gone, who is to stop me? I can just take it, become what I will, and not suffer so cruel a fate. It would be easy…

But am I really alone, really? Is this my fate? It may seem like it now, just as it seemed to me a few hours ago that all hope was already lost and that the Ring had been taken from me forever, more easily than I'd ever thought, but that proved untrue. Perhaps this will, too. The others may fall, but there is one who won't. He has been with me since the beginning. He saved me before. He is with me now. And he will be with me then, in my daunting future. I see him stumbling next to me in the forsaken land, coming behind me to help me walk. He'll never leave me, no matter what.

***The End***

Author's Note: This is a short one, a practice in vignette.

**I'm going on a little sabbatical. Not longer than a few weeks. I just have a whole lot of RL loose ends that need tying into sailor's knots. I'll be back with more of the TSO series, though. :o) **

**And now, in true Cassia style (we all know Cassia, right? RIGHT??), a preview of the next three stories in the series. **

**Story 3:**

**"What Good This Deafness"**

**_and_****_ next a challenge even graver/you must act as your own savior/seems not bad but true, it's worse/it can be the cruelest curse_**

**-Overture**

**The fellowship is dismayed to say the least, to find themselves saddled with a new curse. On discovering what it is, though, they that they may be able to withstand it, perhaps even try to go on normally. But this is a grave mistake…**

**Story 4:**

**"Mephistopheles""**

**_and_****_ then attraction/don't pretend/you did not know how it would end_******

**-Overture**

**The entity behind the curses is far, far worse than anyone suspected.**

**Story 5:**

**_what_****_ was his and sacred being/preserved his life/he'll find it fleeting_**

**-Overture**

**Legolas**** suffers a horrid loss, that may be the end of him. Can the others save him?**

**Well, that's all! Hope you join me for them! **

**Leafy )--**


End file.
